The First Chapter
by Smeehan98
Summary: When Quote and Curly woke up their memories were broken. Their mission was abandoned. The war a nearly forgotten conflict no one wanted to remember. Back up ten years however, and you'd find a very different situation. (Dead)


"_It's funny. We've invested billions into creating the perfect killing machines. But they're all missing something." _

"_They're stronger, faster, tougher and smarter than any human. But they don't have any 'spark'. No drive."_

"_Who would've thought our biggest weakness would become their greatest strength?"_

_-Dr Torini, Founder of BASIC_

_Curly's POV_

When I first saw the Floating Island there was no feeling. How could there be when neither of us had even begun to break down the codes holding our sentience back? We weren't designed to feel, or at least not truly. We could mimic, sure, but really _feeling_ beyond us. We certainly weren't designed to care about the faceless death we saw down there.

Looking back now though, it's all too clear what I'm 'feeling'. By then the war between our creators and the Island's denizens was already well underway. Gunfire and explosions constantly lit the ruins of whatever civilisation had once lived on its top as both sides fired over hills of their own dead.

The helicopter was manned by an entirely human crew, none of whom were ever going to set foot on the warzone we were fast approaching. That job fell to us: two Advanced Reconnaissance Androids. We were experimental models and this was our first real mission together as partners.

"_CB-01, this is Form." _A familiar simulated voice crackled through my audio receptors, silent to the crew. "_Confirm mission objectives and ROE."_

Within nanoseconds of the request being processed my response was already being transmitted._ "CB-01 to Form. Mission objectives as follows: find and destroy artefact referred to as "Demon Crown". Rules of engagement as follows: eliminate any and all threats to deployed hardware. Ignore existing conflict unless deemed necessary by hardware."_

The boy standing next to me - my partner - essentially repeated my transmission. We waited a few moments whilst the human operator cross-referenced our confirmations with their own copies. Meanwhile, one of the crew joined us at the rear of the transport, at the door controls.

Finally, the voice returned. "_Confirmed. Transmission is being cut. Proceed with objectives."_

My partner turned to the crewman. "Mission is a go. We're cleared for jump." He spoke in a level but clear voice.

It was a bad sign; in the short time since my creation I'd discovered that the flatter a robot's voice was the dumber its owner tended to be. Monotone was really only one up from the industrial arms that probably built us, and industrial arms make for poor soldiers.

I should probably clarify that this is how our relationship first started. Despite our every feature being designed to complement one another and cover each other's weaknesses, we hadn't actually been together in the same room since our creation. I think it was something to do with us going through a trial period to test us individually, and them not wanting us to ruin that by helping each other.

So all we knew about each other then was that, for better or worse, we were stuck together until our job was done.

The human nodded curtly before pulling a lever on the controls, lowering the helicopter's cargo ramp. As it fell we got a much closer look at the carnage that was taking place below; hundreds of robotic soldiers were engaged with one another, alongside the occasional human who dared set foot on the islands surface. Even as we watched a man was crushed beneath the treads of an enormous tank.

And then we'd passed over the fighting and were descending over a quieter strip of land a few hundred meters away. I had to grab hold of my cap when to stop it blowing away as we stepped towards the edge of the ramp. Form had picked a good insertion point; the soldiers were left none the wiser as we dropped silently into an old crater, landing with no more than a soft crunch as our boots dug into the earth.

The helicopter was already fast retreating from the area, but just before it left for good it passed overhead once more. I smiled slightly as a huge hard-case slid off of the back ramp and crashed into the ground beside us. I waved in thanks to the crewman, and was pleased to see he waved back – albeit with a confused expression - just before the transport flew out of sight.

My partner was giving me a similar look, obviously wondering why I put in the effort for such a pointless action. There were a few awkward moments where neither of us seemed to know what to do or say.

Though in hindsight it seems surprising, it was actually he who broke the silence first. "Designation Q-01 Quote." He said in that same flat voice, offering his hand.

I shook it firmly. "Designation CB-01 Curly_Brace, at your service! Most people just call me Curly though." I answered, smiling. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards slightly.

"Curly." He said, as if tasting the word. He was actually storing the name in his memory for future reference, but the process was almost identical to a human's from the outside. "I guess you can just call me Quote then."

"Okay. Quote." I logged the name. "So, um… listen, I know we've only really just met, but I really want to make this whole partner thing work."

He nodded.

"But we haven't exactly had any field training together. We haven't got a system going or anything yet."

He nodded.

"So I don't know how you want to handle this or, who's gonna be in charge or…you know, things like that."

"Why does someone have to be in charge?"

"Huh?" His question completely blind-sided me.

"Why does one of us need to lead? We both trained on our own, so Form must've figured we'd be fine as we were."

"Oh! So just do our own thing, but…together, I guess?"

He nodded.

"You know, that actually makes a lot of sense! I mean, we're supposedly _built_ to work well together, right? So by that logic we have to get along!" This time I definitely saw a smile on his face. Good. That was final proof that he wasn't just another stupid death-droid.

"So, with that problem solved," I put my hands on my hips, "don't you wanna see what the nice soldiers left for us?" I grinned almost maniacally as I rushed over to the case resting at his feet.

Gripping the lid I tried prying the box open, but the moron who packed it must have done too good a job, because it didn't budge an inch. I pulled a bit harder, but instead of ripping the lid off the box just lifted off the ground!

Suddenly there was another pair of hands next to mine, pulling the box down whilst I kept pulling up. It took some grunting, but finally the lid came free and the now open case slammed into the ground.

"Finally!" I exclaimed, "Thanks Quote. Now what do we have here…"

As it happens that box contained what amounted to a miniature armoury: two state-of-the-art machine guns, two energy pistols, an incendiary grenade launcher, a portable missile launcher, mapping modules and a pair of field backpacks. We'd been given enough firepower to arm a whole fire team.

If I looked happy, Quote seemed ecstatic. Almost immediately his hands shot for the missile and grenade launchers, the former of which he stuffed into one of the large backpacks which had also come with the case whilst the later he clipped to his waist. The glint in his eyes as he held the weapon almost made me giggle – apparently my partner was a pyromaniac.

By the looks of things Quote had been taught a lot more about explosives and such than I had. Personally I was happy just taking the leftovers. The remaining pistol and machine gun were exactly the kinds of weapons I trained with and I didn't fancy getting in a fight over the heavy ordinance. Still, there was a golden opportunity, so I might as well take it, right?

"Compensating for something, are we?" I smiled as sweetly as I could.

And that was the first time I ever saw a robot blush. They really paid attention to detail when they built us, let me tell 'ya!

**Hope you guys enjoyed this little intro to what I hope will be an interesting peek at the backstory of the game. Expect a whole lot of the cast and lore to feature in this. It's a war, so as you may have guessed it won't be pretty by any means. But it's also Cave Story, so it'll be fun too…I hope.**

**Enough rambling. Hope you guys enjoyed and please leave a review before you go. Always nice to hear from fans/critics about what could be improved, especially when I'm experimenting with what for me is a brand new style.**

**Oh btw some bad news already: I'm not currently focusing on this story. I already have a queue of stuff to get written, but after playing the game I wanted to get ideas down whilst the thoughts are still somewhat fresh. So updates will be slow.**


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